TTC: Major Operational Issues (Various)

[J Bacon]

Sure....but the station cladding or hangers (or lack thereof) aren't affecting the track structure or causing slow orders.

In the case of these long-term track closures for work, they are scheduled months to years in advance. If they have the ability, equipment and forces to work on other, more localized issues around the main culprits for the work, they will. But the reality is that in a lot of cases, they don't.

Dan

I digressed a bit, I wasn't intending to directly connect the station conditions to track work.

However, when viewed from the customer perspective they represent the same thing, "work" being done with no end date.

 

[bearcat]

I understand that this is caused by multiple projects simultaneously going on at the same time. Also when an issue is discovered and they need to go back to consult with the TTC it takes time to come to a resolution.

Also timing for other projects might be another thing where you need to wait for crews to finish other projects to come back to the one where they removed the cladding.

I think the missing ceiling cladding they may be referring to are the long ?plastic or metal slats, that are removed for various reasons, presumably like a leak, to run some wires, inspect the concrete above it, install a sign etc. but are seemingly never put back.

I'm probably exaggerating a bit, but in my experience pretty much every station is missing at least a few of those, but sometimes half the ceiling. This has been an issue since as long as I can remember using the subway in Toronto regularly (mid 2000's).

Here is an example of those slats:

Anyway, sorry, I think this is probably off the topic, but these missing slats have been ticking me off for almost two decades.

 

[chrisw]

Subway Restricted Speed Zones

At its meeting of September 24, 2024, the TTC Board received a presentation from Fort Monaco, Chief Operations and Infrastructure Officer, on subway restricted speed zones (aka “RSZs”).…

stevemunro.ca

The locations where these occur are overwhelmingly in “open cut” locations where rail is laid on ties and ballast.

Since January 2023 the accumulated count of RSZs is almost 300. Of these, only 30 were planned, typically for track renewal projects where a slow order is required over an extended period while work is in progress.

The average time to resolve an RSZ was 22.1 days, while the median was 11.6 days. This disparity indicates that although typical times (the median) were under two weeks, there would be many cases well above that length.

When a defect is discovered, the work involved could be localized (e.g. a broken weld) or it could cover an extended track segment (e.g. out of alignment rails on track with deteriorated ballast). The overnight repair window is only 90 minutes long when the time needed for setup and clearing the work site are taken into account. Longer periods are provided by early closings, or by weekend shutdowns of an affected section. After repairs are complete, the repair must be inspected and given a few days to “settle in” before the RSZ is lifted.

In May 2024, inspections revealed 25 new defects, 18 on Line 1 and 7 on Line 2 of which 10 were in open cut track. Additional defects were found through the year bringing the total to 85 of which 65 have been resolved. The work required six weekend and 53 early evening closures.

The TTC has a short-term and long-term plan to deal with this situation. These lists hint at the problems that led to the backlog in the first place, notably the reliability of the fleet of workcars essential to this work and the skills level of staff.

Short Term:

• Continuing regular maintenance to meet or exceed all North American standards
• Improving workcar fleet reliability
• Increasing TTC staff skills and training
• Exploring options to increase maintenance windows

Long Term:

• Introducing additional track inspection technology
• Acquiring our own ultrasonic and geometry survey equipment
• Enterprise Asset Management investment in data and knowledge

Design is underway for a TTC ultrasonics car so that they are not dependent on rented equipment and can inspect the network more frequently aiming at a “fix before fail” capability. This car will not be available for about two years. The TTC would like to get down to a steady state level of 6-8 RSZs across the system.

 

[Amare]

Subway Restricted Speed Zones

At its meeting of September 24, 2024, the TTC Board received a presentation from Fort Monaco, Chief Operations and Infrastructure Officer, on subway restricted speed zones (aka “RSZs”).…

stevemunro.ca

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About damn time they released a timeline on when the outstanding issues will be rectified. Unbelievable that we've had slow orders between Bloor and Rosedale for the past 5 straight months (7+ months if we're dating back to January 2024), and 4-5 straight months between Dupont and Yorkdale. Not to mention other areas which have stretched on for 3+ months and counting.

My goodness did Rick Leary ever severely screw up the maintenance state of the TTC. They need to permanently acquire equipment and have more staff in place, this kind of non-sense is simply unacceptable. It looks like they are finally getting serious about the equipment part, now it's the staff part they need to address as well.